If 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players,' then why does analyzing a dramatic script seem so difficult? Find out how to make analyzing dramatic works easier with a four-step process in this video lesson.

Heather teaches high school English. She holds a master's degree in education and is a National Board Certified Teacher.

If 'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players,' then why does analyzing a dramatic script seem so difficult? Find out how to make analyzing dramatic works easier with a four-step process in this video lesson.

Dramatic Works

Have you ever simply listened to your favorite television show rather than watch the actors on the screen? As you might guess, you'd miss quite a bit of the story if you couldn't see where the actors were and what they were doing. When you read a script, you might have the tendency to only read the dialogue, but you will miss a good part of the story if you do that. Look at this example from Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians.

Marston: The legal life's narrowing. I'm all for crime.

Armstrong: My God, he's dead!

If you only read the dialogue, you probably have no idea what's going on, but if we add the stage directions:

Marston: The legal life's narrowing. I'm all for crime. (Drinks it off at a gulp, appears to choke, gasps, has a violent convulsion and slips onto the sofa. Glass falls from his hand.)

Now the scene makes more sense as we see the first victim swallow his poisoned whiskey.

Drama v. Prose

Unlike a short story or a novel, a play is meant to be performed. In fact, the playwright who is penning out her script does not write for the audience to see her words or to give the audience the complete details of her story. Instead, the playwright writes for the actors, the stage crew, and the directors who will be interpreting both the dialogue and the stage directions to create the performance that the audience will see.

That means that if you're reading and analyzing a play as a piece of literature, that you cannot approach it like you would a short story or a novel. Instead, you have to take on the roles of actor, stage crew, and director, and fill in the other parts of the story that are not on paper. Even so, analyzing a play isn't really very different from analyzing prose. Your purpose is the same: to determine how the different elements work together to create the overall effect.

The basic elements of a play are the same basic elements that you see in prose. There are characters, a plot, and a theme. But because the written structure of the play is different, you do not receive those elements in a play in the same order that you receive them in prose. And there are additional elements in the play, such as stage directions, that must be accounted for. Finally, the effect itself is different in a play because all of the elements work together to enhance a performance, or at least a potential performance.

Elements of Analysis: Type of Play

Analyzing a play simply means that you are questioning the text in order to gain a better understanding of the author's message, style, or even characters. Typically, you are analyzing the script for the theme through its development of dramatic techniques. If you are given a script to read and analyze, the first thing you want to do is to identify the type of play. Is it a comedy or a tragedy? Can you identify the sub-genre? The type of play will give you insight as to what to expect from the theme, characters, and plot. The other videos in this series can help you with the details for the play types.

Elements of Analysis: Theme

There are two questions you ask when you are determining theme. First is the 'What?' For example, 'What is the theme?' Usually, the theme is going to be a moral or a lesson that the characters learn. Often in a tragedy, the topics include revenge, loss, revelation, and justice. Comedy often deals with disorder in varying degrees.

The next question, 'How?', will further your analysis of the script. 'How does the playwright implement the theme?' Usually, this will be through characters and dialogue. Not only will this help you better understand the theme, it will help you discuss the playwright's style, or her unique use of dramatic techniques.

Elements of Analysis: Characters, Plot, & Stage Directions

The other elements of analysis, the dramatic techniques like the characters, plot, and stage directions, are all very much intertwined during the play. As you read, you need to ask yourself, 'How do stage directions, dialogues, soliloquies, and actions develop the characters?'

One of the first elements you encounter in a script is the cast of characters. And while you ultimately want to analyze for theme, it is important to remember that the characters are acting out the playwright's themes, and in some cases the characters themselves are representing certain themes. Therefore, they are always a good place to focus when beginning an analysis. Sometimes there's simply a list of character names with a brief description of each. This can help you determine the relationships among characters as you begin reading.

Each character will further be developed through the use of dialogue, or what the characters say, throughout the play. Not only will the playwright give you their speaking lines, she will often give you stage directions, the information in the script that is only meant for the director, actors, or stage crew, that indicate tone of voice and mannerisms. What the character says and how he says it will give you insight to the character's importance to the plot. In fact, the main character in the play will move the plot. The minor, or less important, characters will help create the mood - the general feeling that the audience has as they watch the play.

Of course, this is being performed on a stage, so you do not get to hear the characters' thought processes as you would in prose, even if through a narrator. Instead, the playwright uses soliloquies and asides to help the audience understand the characters' motivations and concerns. A soliloquy, where a character speaks his thoughts alone on stage, or an aside, where a character on stage addresses the audience to reveal their inner thoughts, but the other characters on stage cannot hear them, are the techniques that the playwright uses for us to hear the characters' thoughts. When you analyze the play, you can ask yourself, 'What does the soliloquy or aside reveal about the speaker?' and 'How does it move the plot?'

Elements of Analysis: Putting It All Together

At this point, you've asked quite a few questions about the script, and you've gotten a better understanding of how all the different parts of the script function. It's time to put everything together to create a final analysis. This final analysis explains how the parts of the script work together to create the overall effect or the implementation of the theme.

Initially you identified a single word theme, or a topic. Now you have to determine, 'What does the author say about that topic?' If you say the theme is 'revenge' for example, you need to be able to explain what the playwright is saying about revenge. Does she believe that revenge is sweet? Or maybe she is telling us that revenge can deteriorate a person's soul.

Once you've established the 'What?', again, you move on to the 'How?' So, you need to ask yourself, 'How does the playwright use the characters, plot, and stage directions develop this theme?' Here, you connect your ideas about the characters, plot, and stage directions to the theme you have identified. This will finalize your analysis by tying everything together, because it clearly illustrates how the playwright uses the dramatic devices to send out her message to the audience.

Lesson Summary

Because drama is meant to be performed in front of an audience rather than simply read by the reader, your approach to analyzing a play is different from that of typical prose writing. When you analyze a play, you are questioning the text in order to gain a better understanding of the author's message, style, and even characters. Typically you are analyzing the script for a theme through its development of dramatic techniques. There are four steps you can take to analyze a play:

Identify the type of play.

Determine the theme.

Analyze for dramatic techniques.

Put it all together to illustrate how the playwright uses the dramatic devices to send a message to her audience.

Following these steps will help you not only gain a greater insight to the playwright's style, but to the message as well.

Become a Study.com member and start learning now.

Summary:

Earning College Credit

Did you know… We have over 95 college
courses that prepare you to earn
credit by exam that is accepted by over 2,000 colleges and universities. You can test out of the
first two years of college and save thousands off your degree. Anyone can earn
credit-by-exam regardless of age or education level.